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Tippett Studios visual archive (unofficial, plz read desc!)

Topics: tippett
Item Size: 49.6G

[UPDATE: if you want to browse images in this archive easily, the discs in this collection have been added to the Discmaster service - here's a great example.]

As many of you may have heard, the Berkeley, CA-based physical office of Tippett Studios, Phil Tippett's pioneering stop motion & CG effects company, were sold off in mid-2026 due to the 2024 bankruptcy of the U.S. entity. I attended the liquidation sale, and discovered a giant folder of CD-ROMs and DVDs with media assets was part of the 'everything must go' sale.

I quickly realized that some of this information wasn't available online and might not ever be in the future in such high resolution. So I purchased the disc folder and digitized all of its contents. What you have here are .ISO image files of the 90 key, non-duplicated discs from Tippett's archives. (No personal info is included afaik - some discs weren't uploaded because they were unreadable or contained 'final production' versions of films.)

For those not in the know, Phil Tippett is a key figure in the history of visual effects. A disciple of Ray Harryhausen, his stop motion animation and design was important to films like Star Wars (Dejarik chess set, cantina scene) and Robocop (ED-209), and his later work on Jurassic Park (providing maquettes for the CG dinosaurs they ended up using) and Starship Troopers (bugs - he also directed Starship Troopers 2 himself) is also key. Later work from his studio included movies like Hellboy, Evolution, Constantine, Spiderwick Chronicles & more.

While the Internet Archive has derived some video files you can view as default, and the first one (though it seems to have duplicated itself) is a good visual overview of his influences and key work, the full list of ISOs is listed here and is much larger than the initial page load might suggest. I've named particularly interesting discs with !! at the start.

Some of the key items here include some great pics from the studio's history (both in-studio and on set), a large set of digitized slides including behind the scenes photos from Piranha, Star Wars & more, the creature design bible for the movie Evolution, plenty of interesting photos & art from Starship Troopers 1 & 2, and more. Please note that Internet Archive doesn't always allow you to explore the .ISO correctly and you might need to download the disc to see the contents properly.

Finally, Tippett is still working in the biz as of 2026 in his mid-70s, and actually had some stop-motion animation in The Mandalorian & Grogu movie - there's an Indian/Canadian entity which is working with him on new projects. So Tippett Studios still exists in some form - but it was a real shame that their physical archives were auctioned off to pay creditors in such a way. I think it's in the public good for this to be archived, so thanks to the Internet Archive for providing space to do so.

- TippettFan